I missed that Friday was a holiday, and thought I was getting out of town ahead on the madding crowd. I was headed to San Diego to visit friends over the 4th of July weekend. By 3:30 am I was too tired to drive further, so I slept for a few hours in the back of my car.
The drive was a grind, at least as far as the Grapevine. Today, on the reverse trip, I'm flying down the ribbon of road that is Interstate 5. I pass trucks laden with onions and tomatoes, fields of hay, corn, orchards, beehives, and yet more crops, mile after mile. In places there are scraggly sunflowers that have taken root in the cracks alongside the road, presumably a later generation of volunteers from a prior field of sunflowers.
I stopped for gas and as I left, had the briefest of exchanges with a fellow traveler who was brushing his teeth beside his open top jeep. Sans words, just the universal acknowledgment of travelers. Somehow that common acknowledgement of shared humanity lifted my spirit as I traveled on.
It's very easy to complain about the seven plus hours in the car today, or the much longer trip on Friday. But I am reminded to value the mundane moments of this life. They are what make up the bulk of my days. And to be thankful that I can choose. I know there are so many times and places in the world where that would not have been true.
